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After dropping several hundred dollars on an iPad, most users will be interested in protecting their device. Apple's tablet is designed to go anywhere, however this also means a high level of risk for breakage, theft and even water damage. The obvious way to protect the iPad is to purchase a case or cover, however this is not a full-proof solution.

The included iPad warranty from Apple will protect against manufacturing defects, but AppleCare doesn't cover broken touch screens, vandalism or theft. Statistics show that most tablet and laptop computer failures are due to physical damage.

Worth Ave. Group provides insurance policies to cover a wide variety of adverse events that could happen to your iPad, including theft. AppleCare will not cover any damages from handling, much less damage from fire, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes or lightning strikes.

At today's iPhone 4 keynote speech, Steve Jobs announced that Apple has sold 450,000 iPads since launch day as of April 8. Those sales resulted in 600,000 iBooks downloads and no less than 3.5 million iPad application downloads to date. Not bad for less than a week.

In the US, Apple's share of mobile browser usage (Mobile Safari running in iPhone OS) totals 64 percent. The next closest competitor is Android OS with 19 percent, and BlackBerry comes in third with a 9 percent total. Apple has sold a total of 50 million iPhones and an additional 35 million iPod Touch devices, all running iPhone OS.

GelaSkins are removable covers for protecting and customizing your portable devices. They feature stunning, photo-quality graphics ranging from fine art prints to contemporary urban images designed by Gelaskins' growing family of artists from around the globe. Stand out in the crowd with personalized protection from GelaSkins.

Gelaskins offers premium scratch protection for your iPad with, as Gelaskins puts it, "style not bulk". Gelaskins lets you stand out in the crowd when you wrap your iPad in one of their many designs, ranging from fine art prints to contemporary urban images designed by Gelaskins' growing family of artists from around the globe.

Gelaskins are precision fit and are also removable and re-usable for style-swapping.

Not satisfied with any of Gelaskins' voluminous design library? No problem, simply upload your own high resolution artwork or photos to create a Gelaskin of your own design.

Retailer Best Buy is sold out of the Apple iPad. For those looking to purchase the device at one of the 673 stores with Apple shops, the company expects a replenishment of iPads on Sunday, April 11. Best Buy stores are said to have launched the iPad on April 3rd with only five of each iPad model in stock, a total of 15 per store.

The Apple Store has no such inventory problems to date. Pre-ordering online for the iPad Wi-Fi + 3G model is still open, although a ship date for the cellular data-capable model has not been announced by Apple. The model is scheduled to be delivered in "late April" and it's unclear whether or not Best Buy will have these in stock immediately.

Well you've just spent between $499 and $829 for your iPad, how can you be sure your investment is protected in the event of an accident? Apple's tablet is extremely portable, which also means exposure to the elements and a constant risk of breakage in transit. The included iPad warranty from Apple will protect against manufacturing defects, but AppleCare doesn't cover cracked screens or water damage.

Statistics indicate that most tablet and notebook failures are due to accidental damage. SquareTrade, a licensed insurance provider, offers iPad protection that fully covers accidental damage from handling (ADH), among other things. The company has been in business since 1999 and has sold millions of warranties.

According to SquareTrade, "drops, spills, water damage, battery failures or any other failures from normal use or accidental damage" are all covered under their plans. This is the key difference between SquareTrade's insurance and other coverage options such as AppleCare.

As mentioned in last week's contest announcement, we'll be giving away iPad accessories every weekday in April. The contest features a wide variety of iPad accessories including screen protectors, skins, cases, stands, warranties and insurance. Tomorrow, April 5, is the first day of the contest, with ZAGG's award winning invisibleSHIELD iPad screen protector kicking things off.

ZAGG's invisibleSHIELD is one of the most well-known names in electronic gadget protection. These "invisible" plastic skins protect gadgets around the world including mobile phones, laptops, GPS units, digital cameras and more.

Well, that didn't take long. The iPad is now officially jailbroken on its first day in the wild. Approximately one hour ago, iPhone Dev Team member musclenerd, posted on his Twitter account that a port of the "Spirit" jailbreak developed by comex had been ported to the iPad.

Musclenerd's tweet read "http://is.gd/beaVL initial porting of "Spirit" jailbreak by @comex to iPad", the link pointing to a picture providing rough visual evidence of the jailbreak. Musclenerd has since updated his Twitter account with links to a video showing more of the jailbreak (view the video below).

Though it comes as no surprise, we've gotten emails from a number of readers who received an iPad with dead pixels and we've read about many more around the web. This comes with the territory, dead and stuck pixels are a reality of LCD technology. Different manufacturers have different policies on what constitutes an unacceptable number of dead or stuck pixels, and thus at what point the product in question is exchanged as defective. So where does Apple stand on the iPad?

Apple has no definitive guidelines on what they consider an egregious number of dead or stuck pixels on any of their products. However, Apple has traditionally been very fair and balanced when it comes to warranty exchanging their products due to customer complaints about dead or stuck pixels -- especially in the case of the iPhone. Chances are, the iPad is no different.

So how do you check to see if your iPad has dead or stuck pixels? We've put together an altogether un-fancy, but terribly simple way to check your iPad for dead or stuck pixels.

Photos of internal iPad components released by the FCC have revealed a few surprises. Official iPad specifications from Apple do not mention stereo audio output, only a "built-in speaker." Further inspection of the teardown photos reveals what is clearly two distinct speakers.

The parts shown above comprise the speaker assembly, which consists of dual speakers to provide stereo sound. According to ifixit.com there are two small sealed channels that direct sound toward three audio ports in the bottom of the iPad. This is the first time evidence of stereo sound on the Apple iPad has surfaced.